Trade in Animals and Animal Products (Legislative Functions) and Veterinary Surgeons (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between George Eustice and Maria Eagle

Monday 7th October 2019 General Committees

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the Trade in Animals and Animal Products (Legislative Functions) and Veterinary Surgeons (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (S.I. 2019, No. 1225).

This statutory instrument serves three purposes. First, it makes a number of technical changes to existing statutory instruments, to ensure that retained EU law continues to operate effectively after the UK leaves the EU. Secondly, it ensures that our statute book is closely aligned with the EU initially, to support our application for third-country listing for live animals and products of animal origin. Thirdly, it makes a minor correction to an earlier EU exit SI.

The SI was made under the urgency procedure, as it will be required to support the UK’s application to the European Commission for third-country listed status for animal health purposes, which is currently being considered by the EU’s Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed—SCoPAFF. As the Government have made clear, we seek a negotiated withdrawal from the EU, but we are also taking all responsible steps to prepare for all scenarios, including a no-deal exit.

The European Commission considered the UK’s request for third-country listing at the SCoPAFF meeting on 9 April, and based on guarantees and the relevant animal health and hygiene legislation being in place on that date, it agreed to expedite that third-country listing so that it was available from day one. However, another vote is now required, on 11 October, and this SI must be ready and on the statute book to provide the EU with the necessary assurances to be able to expedite that third-country listing. We are making an offer to the European Union, which it has agreed to previously and, we hope, will again, to align certain sanitary and phytosanitary regulations for a period of nine months, in return for its expediting that third-country listing so that it will be available from day one.

This statutory instrument, as with all such instruments, has a rather long title. I will refer to it simply as the animal imports SI, which I think will be easier for everyone. The animal imports SI transfers legislative powers that give the Secretary of State, with the consent of Ministers from the devolved Administrations, the power to amend, vary or add to the list of third countries that can export animals and animal products into the United Kingdom—a function previously carried out by the European Commission.

The SI also gives the UK the power to align with the EU by being able to add new countries to the list for commodities permitted to be imported once the relevant veterinary and scientific risk assessments have been made. Previously, this power was not considered urgent, since we have many alternative powers in other legislation to prevent trade from countries where there is deemed to be either an animal health or a food safety risk. However, this additional power makes it easier to align directly with the EU during that nine-month transition period, in accordance with the undertaking that we have given in order to expedite that third-country listing.

The SI also amends previously made EU exit SIs regarding animal and animal product imports. This is linked to that first power and will simply allow the Secretary of State, again with the consent of the devolved Administrations where appropriate, to publish lists of animals and products that require or are exempted from border veterinary checks outside of the legislation. This will mean that we can vary both the countries on that register and the products that each of those countries are able to export to the UK.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

Can the Minister explain why he is amending regulations that had already been made under the EU exit procedures in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 before we had even got to exiting? Was a mistake made the first time round or has there been a development? Why does he have to amend statutory instruments that were supposed to prepare us for a no-deal exit?

[George Eustice]

There are two reasons: first, as I said, the EU SCoPAFF’s April agreement has expired and it is considering the matter again on 11 October. Although the ability to amend and update the list in a quick and expeditious way was not considered essential the first time round, given more time we believed it would be helpful to put it in there to place beyond any doubt the fact that the EU would have all the assurances it needed to expedite third country status.

There was also an error, which I was coming on to. The statutory instrument amends the Veterinary Surgeons and Animal Welfare (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 by correcting a reference to the Recognition of Professional Qualifications (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 to enable certain EU, EEA and Swiss veterinary surgeons to register with the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. The error was simply that the previous SI referred to paragraph 43 of a regulation regarding professional qualifications that had been laid before the House by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. The relevant paragraph in its final iteration became paragraph 44, so there was an error in cross-referencing to the wrong paragraph, and this SI simply corrects it.

Part 1 of this statutory instrument contains relevant definitions used in the instrument. The legislative powers to amend the list are transferred from the Commission in parts 2 and 3 of this instrument. In parts 4 and 5, amendments are made to a previously made EU exit statutory instrument, and to domestic regulations in England and Northern Ireland relating to the trade in animals and animal products. No policy changes were made by those amendments; they are simply technical.

The final purpose of this SI is to correct a genuine but minor error in referencing a paragraph that turned out to be wrong in the final iteration of the regulations that I have mentioned. The devolved Administrations were fully engaged in the development of this statutory instrument, and it applies to the whole of the UK. I therefore commend the regulations to the Committee.

Fur Trade

Debate between George Eustice and Maria Eagle

Monday 4th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (George Eustice)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) on the way in which he introduced the debate. This is an emotive topic, which I know the public care about deeply. As hon. Members have pointed out, more than 109,000 people have signed the petition, so it is right that we have a long debate today to explore the issues in more detail.

The UK prides itself on being a world leader in animal welfare standards and, as hon. Members have also pointed out, this is a cross-party approach. Governments of all colours have advanced the case for improving animal welfare and tackling animal cruelty. We are at the forefront of international efforts to protect the interests of animals. For example, as hon. Members have said, we recently announced proposals to ban the sale of ivory to help to bring an end to elephant poaching. That Bill will start its passage through Parliament this evening, and I am sure that it will have universal support from all Members at today’s debate.

[Maria Eagle]

Does the Minister accept that it is not possible to improve the welfare of animals that are being farmed for their fur?

[George Eustice]

I was going to come on to that point, because I am aware that the hon. Lady introduced a private Member’s Bill on this subject. She recalled earlier how a number of Back Benchers frustrated her Bill. She joins an illustrious list of people before her and since who have had their private Members’ Bills frustrated. As a general rule, I find that if the Government do not support a private Member’s Bill, Back Benchers support it, and vice versa. It is one of those Catch-22s that we have to live with.

The hon. Lady correctly pointed out that the Farm Animal Welfare Council—now the Farm Animal Welfare Committee—did a piece of work on fur farming. It looked specifically at two species, mink and arctic fox, and concluded that because they are wild animals it was unable to come up with an industry code of practice to enable those two species to be farmed in a way that was conducive to their welfare. On that basis it recommended, and the Government accepted, a move towards a ban on fur farming. It is important to recognise, though, that—for reasons that I will come on to later—the then Labour Government introduced that ban but stopped short of a ban on trade in fur. Instead, they introduced a fur farming ban, which is far easier to achieve.

However, the hon. Lady put her finger on an important point—the difficulty of farming animals, and wild ones in particular, in a way that is conducive to their welfare. That point was made powerfully by a number of hon. Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for Clacton (Giles Watling), for Morley and Outwood (Andrea Jenkyns) and for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant), and the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy). My hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) talked about the ethical difficulty of these issues.

The Government have supported higher animal welfare standards worldwide as the best way of phasing out cruel and inhumane farming and trapping practices that are banned here. Once the UK retakes its independent seat on international bodies, such as the convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora and the World Organisation for Animal Health, we will have an opportunity to promote the British view on animal welfare in such international forums, and to support improved animal welfare standards internationally.

In the meantime, there are some EU provisions that the UK has always supported—indeed, in many cases the UK argued for them. First, there are regulations that include a blanket ban on the importing of furs from a number of animals, including cats and dogs, as well as seal skins and products from commercial hunts. Secondly, there are EU regulations that ensure that any fur that can be imported into the UK from the EU comes from animals that have been kept, trapped and killed humanely, as defined by EU regulations. Fur production is allowed in some other EU member states, and EU directive 98/58/EC applies animal welfare standards to farmed animal production, including animals farmed for fur. EU regulation 1099/2009 applies requirements to protect the welfare of fur animals at the time of killing. Those regulations are audited by the European Commission.

Humane Society International figures suggest that about 85% of fur imported into the UK comes from farmed species such as mink, arctic fox, racoon, dog and rabbit, with the remainder coming from trapped wild species. The EU does not allow imports of fur from wild animals caught by unacceptable trapping practices. EU regulation 3254/91 relates to fur from 13 animal species, and requires certification, including from third countries, that animals were trapped in the right way.

All of those EU regulations pertaining to trade from third countries and the standards we require will come across into UK law through the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, which is currently making its way through Parliament. I will return to the issue of additional trade restrictions in the WTO and the EU, which a number of hon. Members raised, but first I want to dwell on some of the other restrictions that we support.

In addition to the EU regulations, CITES controls fur from endangered species. For example, export permits and commercial use certificates strictly control the import of fur from endangered species. Those controls are implemented in the UK by the wildlife trade regulations. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is responsible for processing import declarations and granting customs clearance for regulated goods, and Border Force works to ensure anti-smuggling controls intercept any illegal products. Although there were no seizures last year, 19 consignments were checked because it was considered that they might have some irregularities in their paperwork.

There are legal frameworks for the farming of fur animals in some non-EU countries, including minimum standards and inspections of welfare conditions. However, there are of course no EU or UK checks on farming conditions in those third countries.